Cubic Zirconia
by Gardenia75
Summary: MY take on how Dan and Blair face the Chuck obstacle. Pre/post S5 finale.
1. Chapter 1

So that's my take on the events pre/post finale. Generally spoiler-free!

It's a world wind of Chuck and the darkness that surrounds the tortured boy that she lets permeate into their universe and he's trying so hard not to be jealous. He doesn't do jealous. He only does perfect fucking boyfriend. So when she's telling him in a small voice like she's afraid he'll break, he tells her it's alright, that he understands, that he's not upset with her. He adds an unnecessary and pitchy "why would I be worried?", like he has never watched second rate movies and doesn't know it means his world is about to come crashing down.

He rationalizes it, after all Serena and Nate are involved too, so it's more a non-judging breakfast club thing than a ChuckandBlair thing. But it feels a little too much like what Marcus, Nate and Louis might have thought when the whole Chuck part of Blair happened to them.

And just like tonight, she might have been there, looking up at them adoringly, licking her lips and grinding herself against them, distracting them enough so that they wouldn't see, they wouldn't know. He was there though that time she picked Chuck over Marcus, Chuck over Nate, Chuck over Louis. He would have to be a fool not to notice the pattern. Did they feel as shattered loosing her as he is at the mere idea? Did they dream every night about Chuck finally giving in, being swallowed by the emptiness and freeing Blair from their dysfunctional equation?

"So" He says caressing her cheek "how is the grand scheme of the century going?"

She looks hesitant, as if cut off.

"I… thought you didn't want to know" she objects prudently

"I don't, not the specifics but it's you, so of course I'm interested." He tries to ask casually. Tries not to beg.

"Well, thanks to Nate's James Bond moves, we've figured out that neither Jack or Diana donated the blood that saved Chuck's life, so that means he has another relative we didn't know about. We were on a trail that led us to a brothel; which did nothing but confirm it was a Bass we were dealing with because who else takes refuge amongst whores and orgies?"

He winces because he really doesn't need to be reminded the sex games the Basses like to play. He doesn't want to know why she is wearing a barely-there dress, that is miles away from being Blair-like.

"And I don't know, I still can't make sense out of it but the club got raided and I opened a door and I think I saw Bart there."

"What?"

"Yeah I know. I couldn't talk to him but I told Chuck to go back after the police left. I can't imagine how it'll make him feel. Knowing that his own dad faked his death. Considering everything he's been through because of it."

"How about what you've been through?" he wishes he could catch the words and un-say them.

She's a bit startled, she thought Chuck and Dan were somewhere on the road from foes to tenuous friends.

"Look I know Chuck isn't perfect, but he doesn't deserve this. No one does."

"Are you serious? I mean amongst his various accomplishments, he traded you for a hotel to his rapist of an uncle. I'm not that surprised people aren't queuing to parent him."

"Thanks for the reminder. I know what Chuck is capable of. The bad and the good."

"You're welcome. It seems you're very selective about what you remember about him."

"I'm not. I care about him, I'm just trying to help!"

"Are you?" he mutters under his breath, defeated

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Fuck Blair. You always end up with him, right? It's in the cards or something. Do you even realize that I can't breathe until you walk through that door every evening and I find out I haven't lost you?"

"Oh my god, I can't believe this. Do you want to hold me prisoner maybe? Away from all my friends and the people I care about? From Habsburg to Williamsburg, I knew you'd be my social death."

"Your social death? Is that really how you see things? How you see me?"

"Well it's Friday night and I am here aren't I? I just didn't realize what I was missing by slumming it in the drags of Dumbo." She cuts. Deep.

"If you really think you're better off without me, then why don't try it out?" He shouts opening the door. She looks surprised and hurt and he can't help but enjoy the feeling that he somehow has an impact on her. It shouldn't be the only way for him to figure it out though so he doesn't back down.

She's gone for an hour and he feels completely empty, constantly on the verge of tears. It has been an hour and a half when he exits the lift into her living room, ready to wait for her return. He doesn't have to though. Dorota nods towards the top of the stairs and he doesn't need to be told twice.  
She's lying on her bed when he comes in, in her underwear sobbing softly. He sits down and gently grazes the side of her face. And it's here, those three words that she never says, that he's pretty sure she has decided are not and will never be for him, as if she wasn't ready to accept to give them to someone from Brooklyn, to a hipster writer, to Serena's ex-boyfriend. But it's all over her face, so he takes her in his arms and starts rocking her and surrounds her with his "I'm sorry". They fall asleep like that in that awkward position, him fully dressed and her half naked. Before drifting, he thinks back to his teenage years, marked by the anxiety that there might be no meaning to life. There probably isn't but if there is, this is his. He was born to protect her from the world.

It's so new though, his feeling that way that it almost makes him laugh. He remembers him of the first time he ever saw her. A gorgeous petite brunette, the living portrait of Snow White. She was not as rootable as the fairytale princess though. Beauty was undeniably written in her genes, but so was contempt, he had thought back then, validated by the overtly despiteful looks that she was shooting him, pursing her gorgeous lips in a disapproving wince. And he had been stricken because there was something so oxymoronic about so much hate concentrated in such an outwardly pretty girl.

It took him 4 years to find her but there was no way he was letting her go now. He had seen her struggle against the world, her best friend, her boyfriends, her mother. Striving for power because she didn't think anyone would love her for herself, without the power plays, the schemes and the threats. It breaks his heart all over again. Because behind the walls, lies the most beautiful person he has ever met.

The very opposite of Serena, the warm blonde that loves the attention and gives everything away too easily. Demanding forgiveness where the heart shouldn't forgive. Overwhelming at first, disappointing in the journey. She's the opposite of Vanessa too, whole, uncompromising, judgmental Vanessa. A moral compass at first, and then blinded by hatred and dragging him down.

He remembers the exact moment he fell for Blair. During her time at W, after having watched Roman Holiday at Film Forum. She had ranted about Ann having to give up her world as if being a princess made her a bad person. He had said it then, what she had wanted to hear, what he had been thinking for a while deep down "even princesses have hearts". She has left that night talking about her own palace and about her own silk sheets like she was escaping him, like she was scared.

He had understood then and there that whoever had said a writer had to stand on the outside was completely wrong. You shouldn't be allowed to talk about something that you don't know, fully, completely and utterly. People should only be allowed to write about their soulmates or themselves.

And it's the same again for another week. Chuck, Serena, Nate and Chuck, Chuck and Serena. And Chuck. He wills himself to not notice how his name comes up more than before. He blinds himself to not realize that she's drifting away and that there is nothing he can do.

He gets offered the internship in Rome again, as if the universe was telling him to get away, in a last ditch effort to get rid of the last obstacle still standing between ChuckandBlair but he can't accept. He might be losing her, but he won't give up without a fight. Considering the alternative, she deserves that much.

But she finds out why he turned down the retreat one day, he can't control everything. She begs him to go and for a second he wants to say yes. He wants to leave her behind and be rid of the constant reminder of everything he's losing. But he says no. She's the one who says yes and it surprises him and he's delirious with joy. They spend the whole day intertwined, making plans. He keeps looking at her as if to make sure he's not dreaming.  
The blast of Blair's diary is nothing. It's full of talk about how she hates poor people and the lower class. She looks up at him, apprehensive but he knows her and he knows she's not honest enough to write what she really thinks, what she really feels. She writes things to indulge in her fantasy world. She looks ashamed though and that's why he loves her.

"Cubic zirconia does not touch this body"

"Normally I wouldn't be as close to you without a tetanus shot."

It's kept them apart for years until he understood those were nothing but words. And that despite them, she's fucking him every night without any shots of any kind, she brushes her fingers through his hair more than would be necessary to say that he needs a haircut, she cares a little too much about Cedric for all her dismissive "cabbage patch kid" remarks.

"I love you" he says it because he needs to. Because he let Louis and Chuck steal it from him before. But none of them have ever wanted her to get everything she ever dreamed of. So he thinks he deserves it.

She looks stunned, at a loss for words and he knows that she can't say it back. But she might one day. He brings her to his lips, shutting her up before she has a chance to speak.


	2. Chapter 2

_Hey everyone, _

_I know things aren't looking so great right now on the show. But I'm team optimism. I have to say I wrote this when I was a bit less optimistic so I think the show will turn out more positive than my story._

_But anyways, I hope you'll enjoy this chapter!_

* * *

It's a knock on the door. And it's her. It has to be, although she doesn't usually ask for permission to enter his world. He rushes to open and he doesn't understand how she can be so tall and blonde, how she can dress this provocatively.

"Dan..." how there can be this much pity in her voice.

He drops the door and goes straight to the kitchen island. That's the only trajectory he still understands. He does it on autopilot. Just like he pours the amber liquid in the glass. It's so strange. It's strange isn't it how he started drinking single malt when he fell in love with Blair? Like he had tried to imitate Chuck, to lure her in with the scent. The alcohol burns and it yanks him back to earth.

"Sorry to hear about what Blair did. I didn't even talk to her. It was all over Gossip Girl. How she chose Chuck. I don't know what to say. You didn't deserve this."

His grip tightens and he wishes he could feel the pain but all he feels when he sees the blood falling from his palm is relief. At least now he knows. At least now he can use this to fight the hope that clings to his soul like a parasite.

"I couldn't make her understand that it was killing me. Her going to Chuck, over and over. I'm not sure I even understood it myself. I didn't want to be some jealous freak. I wanted to think she would choose me."

Serena looks down and pours herself a glass.

"They'll always be drawn back to each other somehow. She's my best friend and as much as I would like to say the contrary, I don't think she'll ever stop loving him" she trails off "like I'll never stop loving you".

He doesn't quite understand that because he's pretty sure he doesn't love Serena and yet she's here, so she might be right. And he's too tired, too shattered to fight. Fight for what anyway?

He's still in a haze and sometimes he hears Serena, mostly her laugh. Her laugh is bright and it's a nice sound, a carefree sound. A sound that he needs. He listens to her ramblings about being an it girl and it's so silly that it brings him relief. The mere knowledge that some things in the world aren't consumed by all things Blair offers hope. He holds her close because he needs the embraces that Blair doesn't give anymore. When she re-visits the subject of Blair sleeping with Chuck timidly, it's the rage that throws Serena on the floor, that climbs on top of her, that rip her clothes off and malaxes her fake breasts, that validates her overinflated ego, that pushes her head to the side and spends itself on her stomach.

* * *

She's entangled in the Chuck's bed sheets, as she was always supposed to be. Inevitable was the word wasn't it when two people are brought together by some uncontrollable, irresistible force that physicists should study?

They had all danced around this certitude for a while, as if Chuck and Blair was something that could have been avoided. But what's sheer human will in the face of destiny? What is mere happiness compared to great love?

Satin and silk are the only materials that should graze the creamy skin of a queen anyway. But she's not a queen anymore, she's more a dark princess. The title changes, but it's still that familiar role of arm candy that she has to play and she has mastered the art.

The writer had told her she needed to find herself after all, so she had merely followed his advice, his order. For a while, she remembers, she had desperately wanted to become the person she had been under his pen. To be this girl, a women in her own right, who was capable of anything. She had yearned to live up to his fiercely strong, independent and beautiful creation.

She had played and she had lost. She had understood that being a partner is sometimes easier that being a whole person. It's less complicated and there is no room for failure. There is less responsibility and more control. She has always craved control, it's so much safer than feelings.

She didn't even tell him. What was the point? Seeing his soul shatter and become liquefied hurt? Show him she wasn't as perfect as he had scripted her? A dark princess isn't plagued by guilt or shame. The weight dragging her soul down is something else probably. She knows he is with his golden dream girl anyway, she has no proof but it's a certainty, maybe even inside her right now. She doesn't think about how he's taking back his love pledges from her and breaking them with each thrust. Instead, she marvels at how perfectly her darkness belongs there, with Chuck, in this room, this bed, this hotel. How it is the eternal companion of his misery.


	3. Chapter 3

I just cannot believe how prophetic my fic turned out to be. I guess I can. The only key to understanding this show is ChuckSerenaDanBlair. They made us think for the whole Dair arc that Blair was searching for herself, that she could be trusted to finally let C go only to yank it away in half an episode. You thought it was about her and her growth? Nope, it was about C all along. B is now as bad as him and deserves him. B is no longer Claire that strong, independent person. She's some weird psycho who dated someone and hurt C, S and mostly D in the process. And you never get any hint of this before the finale. The way they destroy her constantly for C's benefit is stupefying.

In the course of the series C has punched her in the face and barely apologized and B has punched Dan in the face and now will proceed to bet on C and fight for him.  
WTH are they smoking?

The whole episode was a huge list of retcons and lies.

We go from "we believe in redemption otherwise there's no hope for humanity" GGW twitter to "the more things change, the more they stay the same" The retcon of the ring. How does one get redeemed without changing? lol That's not even the most offensive thing that happened.

Of course DB don't breakup. They're so threatened by Dair that they don't even let B say ILY back. Nope, she only says ILY to other guys when you know she doesn't (N/L)...

Anyway, forget the writers!

Here's the new chapter!

* * *

He's in Rome, living la "Dolce Vita". She came with him in the end because she knows he's her refuge, her shelter, her home.

They wander around the city in the overbearing heat, their skin stickier than usual, but it's not what make their fingers linger on each other. He convinced her to go out in her slipper after a few days of impersonating Princess Ann, challenging her to drop her conservative outfits, because he knows she can't resist proving him wrong.

In elevators mostly.

Without gossip girl around, she accepted. Of course, everyone is staring after her, studying the sway of her hips, anticipating the movement of her breasts, admiring her black curls cascading down her back, contrasting with her white porcelain skin. He doesn't blame any of the boys letting their lustful eyes rake over her, she's an apparition. She pretends not to see the trail of unfulfilled desires she provokes and he loves her for it.

But maybe she truly doesn't see it, it's the only thing that could explain why she was so insecure about Serena all these years. The eat gelatos all through the day, she paints him with hers sometimes when he disobeys "a direct order". She sneaks off to talk to Dorota when she thinks he can't hear her, asking about Leo, with a shaky voice drained by the memory of everything she lost.

They spend hours interlaced despite the heat. He is drawn to the architecture, the libraries and she is lured in by the paintings and the churches. She shouts at waiters about their lack of customer service skills, she complains about not touring the city in a limo, but he knows better.

They swim in their private villa, in Pallazo Farnese. Him naked, her insisting on wearing a white bikini that doesn't shield anything and never stays on for more than a few seconds anyway. Luxury does have its perks. Seeing the water glisten over her bare skin, hearing her purr as the water cools her down are a few of the best ones.

Every so often, desire takes over her, darkening her eyes. She moistens her beautiful full lips and she pulls him in a patio somewhere and she begs. And he takes her against the wall. It's slow and sweet and he's whispering I love yous in her ear, trying to reach her heart.

Of course, it's nothing but a dream and once again he wakes up to a grey sky and he's hard as hell. His cock and his heart will never heal and he can't blame them. Having and losing Blair Waldorf will do that to you. He takes a cold shower and the city is old, noisy and crowded. The people sound foreign and he's alone. Desperately so.

* * *

He's been living this fantasy for three weeks and he likes it there. It feels safe and he has control over it. He likes pretending that she's there, just out of his sight. He watches the movies she likes, trying to immerse himself in her universe. He knows it's not healthy, but he deflects the blame on her. Like Chuck always did. With a bit of luck, doing what Chuck does will bring her back.

His phone buzzes under his hand and he can't bring himself to lift it, it goes quiet and then it buzzes again, he wants to enjoy the feeling that someone is missing him, someone is wondering about him.

"Hello?" He grunts in his phone. He hasn't spoken in days.

"Dan? Dan I've been so worried. I've been trying to reach you for days. How are you son?" The concerned voice makes him cringe.

"Dad, I'm…" He trails, unable to reassure Rufus.

"Dan, please come home. I miss you. Everybody does."

"Not everybody." He lets out bitterly

"I know, I know."

"Look dad, it's too soon, I'm not ready to see her and act as if she didn't rip my heart out. I'm not over her and I don't think I'll ever be."

"Oh come on. Don't say that. You've gotten through heartache before."

"It's… it sounds stupid but it's different this time. She's different. I wish that I never changed my mind about her. I wish I had always seen her as a 95 pounds..."

"...doe-eyed bon-mots tossing label-whoring package of girly evil." His dad completes 'But you did. And it's better to have loved and lost love than to not have experienced it at all."

Dan scoofs at the cliché.

"For what it's worth when Lily chose Bart, I didn't think I would pull through. I was so mad at me, at her, at Bart. Truth is it just wasn't our time."

"There shouldn't be a right time for love."

"I know you're a writer and you have these romantic ideas, but there is."

"You know what the worst thing is? I think that I left, hoping she would follow me, that she would at least explain. How could I have loved her so much and her love me so little. If she showed up right now, I would forgive her. I need her dad. I miss her." He trails off because he's about to sob.

"I know and if I could give her to you I would but I can't and you're not that kind of guy, you've never been. You're not selfish, you've always placed her happiness above your own. No matter how much it hurts, you can't be that guy to her. You're worth more than that. Just come home Dan." And the line goes blank.

* * *

She reaches for her phone blindly in the middle of the night. She picks up without a word, barely awake, and her interlocutor is dead silent too. She can only hear a sharp breath, heavy and broken and she feels her eyes moistening as if they had a will of their own. As if the silence told tales the mouth and the heart had always refused to.

"Dan?" she whispers quietly, as if she was going to wake something deep inside her that was had been lured into sleep but only barely so.

A sharp breath was her only answer before the line went blank. She hangs onto her phone as if she was maintaining a link that he had broken, as if it could repair their bond. It's not like she cares she tells herself, it is just easier to think he is the culprit.

She never thinks about him. When he steals her thoughts it's not the passionate so-wrong-it's-right sex, it's not his poetic love declarations either that she remembers. No, the devil is in the details. He's nothing like the darkness that comes with Chuck, the tiaras that came with Louis. He's more like a real person, he's bright and thoughtful and he holds her together when she threatens to break apart at the seems. And it was the start of what she was going to tell him that day…


	4. Chapter 4

He never calls again and she loathes herself for staying up at night, for wondering where he is and whom he's with. She has no right to be jealous. She lost it the minute she acted as if their story was nothing but a blip on the radar of her life. And yet she's here, wondering if his thoughts envelop her as hers reluctantly circle back to him.

She turns to Chuck, because there is no Serena in his life, because he needs her to survive.

She bites his lips to wake him up and she knows it's all she has to do. He pins her down on the bed, it makes her smile softly because she knows her role in this fight, and she's not going to struggle for control. He's the runner of this show. He tastes like something old and comforting. When he starts to talk she runs a finger over his lips, willing him to be quiet. She feels disturbingly bad as if what she was doing was wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. The kind that makes her want to see Dan being torn apart by jealousy struggling in vain against the images of her with Chuck, the kind that wants Dan to shatter her heart in retaliation by fucking Serena. Feeling hurt is exhilarating. It brings another dimension to feeling alive. And she likes that feeling. "Magnetic" she thinks, "Because no one can destroy the other better than we do". And it is her last coherent thought before her walls contract against the familiar intruder, tears streaming down her face.

She knows Chuck doesn't care. The complexity of her emotions isn't why he loves her. He loves her because of what is in her eyes when he talks about his father, he loves her because she left everyone and everything behind for him. He loves her because she gives the unconditional love he thinks he deserves and that he never had. She can't blame him, it's this vulnerability that appeals to her caring instincts. But tonight, she wishes fleetingly it could be about her and her only. She floats out of the bed and she feels lighter as if unchained. She dresses herself with a loose sweater. She feels like she has lived naked for months and yet she's suffocating. She walks aimlessly around the room carried by the sound of Casta Diva, she pushes the volume up wondering if it would shake Chuck out of his stupor.

She grabs his whiskey because maybe that will wake him up. She drinks it disrespectfully from the bottle, spilling half of it on the floor.

She remembers their overnight arguments when none was ready to relinquish intellectual superiority. Him, half-asleep, picking her up in a cab at 3AM to take her to church. She thinks about his shoulder, refuge of her slumber, his hand grabbing hers, the determined sound of his footsteps behind her.

In her secret garden, she has one now, she shouts at him, she punches him with all of her ridiculous strength for having taken these things away from her.

He picks up with a light "hello", reminding her he has a life outside of her memories. She hates him even more for it.

She shuts her eyes because she also loves the sound of his voice, how warm and generous it is. She loves how open he is to the outside world. More than she ever was, more than she would ever be.

"Please, talk to me. Just words ok?" She knows she's begging and that it's more than she wanted to give.

She hears him sigh and she hears it again that edge, that anger.

"Blair. Why are you doing this to me?"

She wants to laugh because she's not doing anything he didn't do to her.

"We did it to each other" she spats defensively

"Do you really think that? Is that what you tell yourself?"

"You asked me to come with you because you were insecure, because you didn't trust me."

"Was I wrong?"

"I guess not. But I was, I trusted you when I shouldn't have."

"Blair…"

"I don't even want to hear it."

A long silence falls on them, she's not sure why she is not hanging up. She speaks up after a while

"Can I tell you a secret?"

"Yes" he answers softly

"I miss you"

He nods as if she could see him because he misses her too, and he hangs up.

He comes home the next day. He never needed much more than a word from her to transition into action mode. He doesn't bother telling the organisers from the retreat, he doesn't say goodbye to the writers he met, he doesn't explain the suddenness of his departure to Daniella. He knows she's hurt, her eyes are about as expressive as Blair's, that's why he chose her, and her hair is as dark and it wonderfully covers her face when he fucks her, she's smart and driven, she's funny. But she's nothing more than a variation on a theme and that theme is slightly lesser version of Blair Waldorf.

He hates being on this plane, because it's slowly but surely taking him back to her. He hates that it will land in JFK and that it's full of memories of her trying to be free and him helping her. How surprised he had been when she chose to runaway with him, he had honestly thought that sending that video would free her to be with Chuck. After that night, he had started thinking that maybe just maybe Chuck wouldn't always be first in her heart.


End file.
